How do you recognize yourself as more than a prisoner, as an
individual who has many stories to tell?
That is the crux of the question that Saskia Keeley of
Accompagnateur Workshop presented to eight men in the Riverhead Correctional
Facility in May 2024. This photography workshop added a writing component, led
by Andrew Visconti, a facilitator at the Yaphank Correctional Facility. And,
for the first time, fabric was employed as another medium to stimulate greater
creativity for the participants.
Photographing each other with and without the cloth both as
background and as a shield against the gray walls of the prison yard allowed
the men to experiment with an identity seen fully or in part. They could explore
the different ways they might choose to present themselves. The writing
exercises worked in tandem with these ideas and allowed the men to express with
more complexity their need for recognition and the failures and shortcomings of
the word “prisoner” to define them as people.
Photography
is to me catching the bigger picture. Alex
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. 
I would like you to know that me being incarcerated doesn’t define who I am as a person. Erik
I would like you to see my personality that the judge or the district attorney doesn’t see about me. Noah
The first thing that I think comes to your mind when you look at us is our skin color. Joseph
. 
